What Is the Desired Goal of Forgiveness?

… the goal must remain the hope of reconciliation and new life.[1]

A journey means traveling toward a goal or destination. Knowing your destination is important, and having the right destination is essential. If you do not know your destination or choose the wrong one, your journey becomes an experience doomed to frustration and failure.

On a lighter note, the baseball player Yogi Berra said,

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.

The ‘journey’ or process of forgiveness has a destination. Not all reach that destination. Nevertheless, there is a desired goal or result.

So, what is the destination of the ‘journey’ of forgiveness?

What does Jesus say?

Relationships will inevitably be damaged or broken, a fact borne out by experience. How do you deal with this inevitability and its fallout?

Jesus provides a thumbnail sketch of how relationships are broken and rebuilt with these words (Luke 17:1-4):

If your brother [or, sister] sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.

Granted, this text does not provide a comprehensive understanding of forgiveness and may raise a few questions. Yet, it gives us some fundamental insights and direction, such as: 

1. The breaking or damaging of a relationship is stated in terms of “sin,” meaning to do wrong, or miss the mark. This is not a misunderstanding, an unintended slight, or a personality quirk you dislike. By act or omission, one person wrongs another person. 
2. An offended person should not remain passive. They are to “rebuke” the offender. Although not stated here, this rebuke or warning should be an expression of love for the other person. 
3. Forgiveness can take place when the offender “repents.” Repenting is a change of heart or attitude on the part of the offender. Forgiveness is the action of the offended toward the offender.

Before proposing a ‘map’ for the journey of forgiveness, let’s deal with the intended destination for forgiveness. 

What is the destination?

As stated in a previous post, forgiveness is not just about ‘me’; it is about ‘us’. Forgiveness is God’s process for rebuilding damaged or broken relationships. The goal of forgiveness is reconciliation.

Reconciliation is the result of having brought together two differing people or things into agreement or harmony. For instance, when a bookkeeper reconciles her accounts, she brings the differing columns of debits and credits into accord.

Reconciliation is reached between two people when they are in agreement or harmony. In our context, that is reached when the break in their relationship has been rebuilt.

How does the process of forgiveness arrive at this goal of reconciliation? Let’s consider what the Bible says about forgiveness.

What does ‘forgiveness’ mean?

In the Bible, the words “forgiveness” and “forgiving” translate a variety of words from the original biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek). The literal meanings of such words convey something of the range and dynamics of forgiveness.

First, here are some Hebrew words and their meanings:

• nasa means to lift, carry, or take away;
• salach to pardon;
• kaphar to cover; and,
• machah to blot or wipe out.

Second, Greek words include:

• aphiemi, meaning to send away; and, 
• aphesis and apoluō, a dismissal or release.

If we gather the meanings of these words together, we begin to get a sense of the dynamic of forgiveness. The sin or guilt of the offending person is pardoned, covered, wiped out, sent away, dismissed—and that person is released from the guilt of the offence.

Of course, this is along the process, approaching the goal of the ‘journey.’ There is a lot more involved in this ‘journey’ to reach the destination.

A working definition? 

So how can we define forgiveness? 

Keep in mind that any definition of forgiveness or forgiving must be consistent with how God in Christ forgives (Ephesians 4:32):

... forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you .  

Here is one practical definition adapted from Jay Adams in From Forgiven to Forgiving[2] that meets the test:

Forgiveness is the declared promise to another never to bring up that person’s offence again to use against that person. 

Are there any improvements you can recommend?

What next?

We will explore each of the issues raised in this post in greater detail in this series. For now, you are aware that genuine reconciliation is the destination of the often costly journey of forgiveness.

The following post will present an overview, or ‘map,’ of the journey of biblical forgiveness.

Is there anything you would like to add or ask? You can contact me using this link. 

BACK TO Walking in the Way of Christ

Notes:

[1] L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 273.

[2] Jay E. Adams, From Forgiven to Forgiving (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1989), 40.

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